


At the Bottom of the Sky

by Rubynye



Category: DC Comics
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:20:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't make it better, but he still wishes he could try.<br/>Note: Also includes the deleted ending in a separate chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers For/Based On: _Nightwing_ 110  
> Dedicated to: [](http://buggery.livejournal.com/profile)[**buggery**](http://buggery.livejournal.com/). Fortuna dies natalis!  
> People Who Made This Worth Reading: All thanks to [](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/profile)[**petronelle**](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/) for courageously battling my semicolons and [](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/profile)[**maelithil**](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/) for bounces and cheers.  
> Title: From ["Skybound Blues"](http://www.prometheus-music.com/eli/filk/skybound.html) by Leslie Fish.

Title: At the Bottom of the Sky  
Rating: NC-17  
Fandom: DC Comics  
Pairing: Dick Grayson/ Tim Drake   
Disclaimer: These characters, their settings, and their angst belong to DC Comics.

It didn't show in how he moved, easy and contained, but Tim is absolutely covered in bruises. In the dim rainy morning, the water sheeting across the window of Tim's bedroom almost makes it seem like they're in bed at the bottom of the sea. There's a part of Dick that would rather be somewhere that far away from everything.

Then there's the part of him that's glad he's here, in his town and in Tim's bed, even though he shouldn't be. They got back to Tim's place a little before dawn and a little after the rain started, and his hair is damp black across Dick's fingers. Asleep, Tim looks like a teenager, mouth softly slack and forehead smooth under his wet hair, but even in the wavering light he's a patchwork of bruises and scars and milk-white skin. Is he getting any sunshine? "Uncle" or not, is he getting anything at all, except occasional assists from Batgirl?

Tim's eyelids are blue from sleep dep, purple at the edges over his rapidly moving eyes. He let go of the blanket when he rolled over, so Dick eases it down to his hips and just looks at him, at the fading yellow bootprint on his side and three mottled purple ovals on his forearm and a row of neat but obviously self-done stitches just above the waistband of his sweatpants. Tim's always been on the thin side, but now Dick can count his ribs easily despite their thickened layer of muscle.

Tim moves as well as ever, and he even smiled, on the street and just before he fell asleep. But his skin is nearly as pale as the plain sheets, and the bruises and new scars stand out lividly; Tim's never anything but careful, so for him to have gotten so banged up... Dick couldn't've been here. He just should have been.

The wish that he could kiss them better makes self-mockery drag at the corner of Dick's mouth, if not strongly enough to lift it. It's a complete cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true; if he could, Dick would erase every bruise and scar and mark, would kiss the hollows from beneath Tim's eyes and rub color back into his skin, would tell him in a better way than words how desperately Dick's missed how they used to be.

He can't, but he still wishes he could try.

But Tim doesn't need... Tim needs his sleep. Dick doesn't; Tommy Tevis's family expects him to sleep eight hours a night like a normal human being, and even if he can't it's been awhile since he got to just lie still for that long. Tim, however, is protecting a city whose potential for trouble Dick knows even better than he knows how much sleep Tim hasn't been getting.

So Dick lies beside Tim and doesn't touch him, counting the pinkish new scars he's collected since before both their lives... since before. He's found two knife-cuts, one place where skin broke open, and something star-shaped whose cause he can't figure out, when Tim's mouth tenses and his eyes speed up beneath the lids. Dick would hope he wasn't having a nightmare, if it would help. Watching Tim's forehead furrow and his mouth tighten into a hard knot, he dully wonders how this always hurts so bitterly.

Carefully shifting closer, Dick lays a hand on Tim's, his knuckles scraping against Dick's palm as his fingers twitch and clutch at nothing. His breathing starts to hitch, and when he exhales a small unhappy noise Dick considers just wrapping his arms around the kid, and idly wonders which nightmare it is.

He had to ask. Tim's face screws up even tighter, and his lips part on a gasped, "Darla, don't." The ones you couldn't save are a special kind of hell. Dick wonders if that's how the bullet felt through Roy's heart, a sharp slicing burn-- and there's another person, one of many, who's better off without him. He shouldn't even be here.

But Tim wouldn't let him leave, and Dick can't lie here and watch and do nothing. One arm under Tim's shoulder, one over his waist, and when Dick pulls him against his chest Tim wakes up, tensing so hard his breathing stops. After a moment or three Tim relaxes again with a little "mmph." Dick nuzzles his damp hair and doesn't say anything, listening to each breath come a little smoother than the last, and waits for him to go back to sleep.

Instead Tim turns his face inward, the point of his nose drawing a warm line across Dick's chest, and kisses him over his heart.

And then Tim lies there, still and waiting, and if Dick didn't know him he wouldn't notice that little tremble.

Tim's cheek shouldn't feel so soft and young under Dick's mouth, just a few scattered prickles of beard interrupting the smooth skin. Well, no, Tim's cheek should feel just this soft and warm. He's only a year older than Sophia Tevis. It's Bludhaven's guardian who shouldn't be so young, feel so tender.

As if he can hear it, Tim knocks that thought out of Dick's head with a kiss that isn't a kid's at all. His hands are bigger than they used to be, palming Dick's head as Tim winds his fingers in his hair and kisses him firmly. Dick opens up to it, lets Tim lick his tongue and suck on his lower lip, but what captures his attention is Tim's shoulder beneath his hand, a squiggle of scar slicker than skin beneath his fingers. Dick strokes across it and up to Tim's throat, over the wiry muscles, wanting to feel Tim's pulse beating proof of his life.

He finds it, but what makes him shiver and tilt his head over Tim's to push the kiss deeper is the scar on Tim's throat, jagged-edged smoothness under Dick's thumb, a ridiculously flimsy barrier to restrain the surge of Tim's life beneath it. Tim has it because Dick wasn't there to assist Batman and Robin with the pseudo-Jason Hush threw at them, because he wasn't there to fight beside them.

Back when they were a family, back before.

When Tim groans Dick realizes he's squeezing too hard; he jerks his fingers loose, but Tim just pushes into Dick's hand and tightens his hold on Dick's scalp, dragging him back down. Tim's face warms under Dick's palm as he plasters himself against Dick, so different from how stiff Tim was the first time they did this, and how melted afterwards. The memory makes Dick fervently need to touch him, smooth face and soft hair fine at the nape of his neck, the ridge of his spine between broadening shoulders and all the way down. Tim shakes under his hand and hisses whenever he strokes the hotter skin of a bruise and doesn't stop pushing into his touch, not until Dick has one hand cupping Tim's ass through the fuzzy sweats, so firm it's hard to squeeze, and the other curved on his face, his skin heating as his flush deepens, and two hands just aren't enough.

"Mmfh," Tim mutters, pulling his hands out of Dick's hair, and it's like icewater splashed in his face, like a slap. He should have known better, he shouldn't be imposing his own neediness on Tim. He drags his hands away from Tim's skin, tears his mouth out of the kiss and throws himself on his back.

"Ugh, there." Tim sits up, hands hooked into the waistband of his sweatpants. He glances over at Dick and his smile freezes, and Dick discovers yet another level to his own stupidity. "Let me just-- Dick? Oh."

Tim's smile is already fading into an absolutely perfect game face that's just horrible to watch, and Dick wants to kick himself in the head. He reaches for Tim instead, with both arms and the tilt of his body. "Tim? Uh, are we overdressed?"

"Are we?" Tim asks, and Dick only knows one other man whose blue eyes ice over so fast. Tim's not moving, but he's receding all the same, cooling and folding himself away, and Dick feels like an ass.

"_Yes_." Dick pushes himself up on one hand, holding the other out. "Tim, I want this. More than, more than I have any right to anymore."

Tim winces and smiles, but the smile outlasts the wince, and his eyes are thawing. "That? Is bullshit." He folds his hand around Dick's. "You always, you have every--" Tim snorts and shakes his head.

Dick tangles Tim's hard calloused fingers with his. "I just... I thought you were tired."

"I napped." Tim glances down for a moment, but when he looks up again his smile is so bright Dick can see an actual gleam of teeth. "You're still talking me _into_ this, right?"

Dick takes the cue and plasters on a grin, and waits for it to help, because he really is stupid. Tim's smile is too bright in the dimness, between lines either side of his mouth, under eyes that are dark and blown and wide without any smile in them at all. It's like a Robin-smile but wrong, like Tim is trying to give Dick one of his back. It would work if it weren't for the pleading in his eyes, and Dick's chest clenches like it'll implode, as he stares at Tim and can't breathe.

Suddenly, Dick is fed up with lying smiles. He doesn't quite manage to swallow his growl, and he yanks Tim's hand harder than he should, but Tim lets himself be dragged towards Dick again; in fact he lets himself land so hard they collide with a thump.

Their hands are still tangled, but neither of them lets go. Tim's other arm winds round Dick's waist as he rolls Dick atop him, and Dick presses their hands into the mattress, forearm to forearm. Dick drags the tip of his nose across Tim's cheekbone, smelling rain and Bludhaven's briny tang on his skin; he watches the fake smile fall away as a real one warms Tim's eyes, and that's what makes his chest stop hurting and his heart feel like it can beat again. "I'd rather not sleep, anyway," Tim mutters against Dick's cheek, and for that bit of truth Dick has to kiss him.

Their hands disengage eventually, because they _are_ both overdressed. Then they're not, and Dick plants his good knee in the mattress to hold himself up against the pull of Tim's strong sleek thighs around his waist. He needs a little room to touch Tim, to survey the bruises and trace the new and old scars, while Tim's hands knead and map their way from his hair to the base of his spine, lingering on Dick's own scars and a couple of bruises from the New York audition, tracing the shape of the muscles beneath his skin.

Wherever Dick touches him Tim presses into it, even when it makes him hiss into Dick's mouth and shudder with what would otherwise be winces. Even when Dick tries to adjust for it and make himself stroke more lightly, Tim just writhes against him, pressing harder, pushing the kiss hard for a moment before it softens again. Dick chuckles before he thinks, and Tim hums back, and Dick has to tuck his arms beneath him and pull their bodies flush, Tim's weight warming his forearms. Tim winds his arm around Dick's neck, and the kiss veers deep and almost slow. Tim's hard, smearing wet stripes of pre-come across Dick's belly, but neither of them is even trying to grind. It's as if they have all the time in the world.

That thought more than any need for air jars Dick out of the kiss, but Tim's still wrapped around him and between his hands, so he can still smile into a laugh. "Tim, you, you feel--"

Tim's eyes always look bigger when they're closed, shifting beneath his eyelids, and they're always startling when they open, diamond-hard and bright. "Yeah, you too," Tim says firmly, already tilting his chin up to kiss Dick again. His wet hair is warming with the rest of him, and he hooks his ankles behind the small of Dick's back. Has anyone even touched him since he left Gotham who wasn't attacking him, Dick wonders, and almost pulls free to ask.

OK, Dick's slow, but he can always plead distraction. When he pulls back a little Tim's grip on his hair tightens even more, telling Dick the answer and the uselessness of the question, so he presses Tim into the mattress and lets the words dissolve into the kiss. That gets him a sigh as Tim relaxes a little but all over, and Dick leans on him till he'd almost think he's crushing him, if he didn't know Tim likes the press, the way it feels safe. Dick isn't safe, but maybe he can make Tim feel that way, for a little while.

So, when Tim lets his mouth go, Dick doesn't try to talk. He drags his mouth along Tim's collarbone and his tongue over hot bruises, pressing his thumbs to the pulse pounding in Tim's wrists, and the only thing better than the taste of Tim's skin is the assortment of soft muffled noises echoing in his throat. Dick can drown in this, the way Tim's moans prickle his mouth pressed to Tim's neck, the way the salt of fresh sweat pulls up sense memories laced with kevlar or hair gel or blood; he almost can't feel anything but Tim's thighs flexing around his waist and Tim's fingers digging into his shoulder and his scalp. "God, Tim," Dick gasps against his throat, feeling Tim's pulse in three places more strongly than his own. "Oh, I want, I want--"

"Lube." That's not what Dick actually was asking for, but Tim's just as breathless, his voice fraying. "It's in-- no, let me--" He tugs against Dick's hold, and Dick has to bite his own lip to make himself understand enough to let go. Tim twists in his arms, scars pale and bruises dark against the patchy flush spreading down his shoulders and chest. There must be three or four shopping bags by the bed but he dives right into the one he wants, pulling out a tube of generic hospital-grade stuff.

That's Dick's cue to tease Tim. He manages to lift an eyebrow. Tim raises one right back, and says, "It's just as good on hinges," with a narrow little real smile and color high on his cheeks, and the answering smile on Dick's face feels strange only because it's sincere.

Then it's gone, but that's just because he's kissing Tim again. This doesn't have to be in a bed beneath a rain-covered window, it's been on a rooftop beneath a wide red sky, on a couch in an apartment that's since burnt to ash; Dick knows those memories are making him hold on too hard, but Tim just groans into his mouth and lets him. He knows he should take it slow, but Tim bucks into his hand, and he has to feel him around his fingers, hot and tight and warmly familiar.

Dick wants to watch Tim till he can see all his changes, to suck him till he relearns the way he tastes, to fuck him till they forget their own names, but he can't stop sucking on Tim's tongue long enough. He shouldn't finger Tim so hard, but each thrust drives out a fragmented moan, makes him clench around his hand; Dick fucks him with two fingers, kissing him till Tim slams his head back into the pillow. Dick's head tips forward, following him, till their foreheads touch, till Dick can feel every ripple, every little jerk as Tim pushes to meet him; if he pries his eyes open, he can watch Tim's press shut, new lines on his face pulling taut, the dent in his lip darkening as he bites it, trapping the sounds.

Dick can't keep his own mouth shut. "Tim, please," Dick hears himself beg, and the muscle of Tim's jaw tenses beneath his mouth. "Please, let it out." He twists his fingers on the next thrust, and that's not fair, but it forces Tim's mouth to fall open, and the little scream makes Dick's lips tingle against Tim's cheek, so he keeps twisting. "Let me hear--"

Tim slams their mouths together, probably to shut him up, but Dick takes the hard messy kiss, whimpering when Tim bites his bottom lip; Tim's nipple is hot between his fingers, and when Tim groans vibration into his mouth and comes on him it hits Dick low in his belly like a punch, almost like he's come too, and he hears himself groan back, louder.

Tim gasps into Dick's mouth as if he were breathing for him, and Dick needs to stop kissing him, needs to let him have some air, but he feels too right--

Pushing against Dick's shoulders for leverage, Tim wrenches his head away, and it hurts like a chunk pulled out of Dick's chest. He takes just one drag of air, deeper than a gasp, before rolling his head back, but Dick drops his face into the pillow and presses their cheeks together instead. He's asking too much. He should have known it would be--

Tim snorts.

Dick jerks up his head, and Tim is giving him a sleepy-eyed smirk. He looks, well, fine. Freshly fucked, even. "Dick," Tim says, slow and actually easy, "can I have my ass back?"

Dick laughs. He tilts his head back and laughs, and he hasn't in he doesn't know how long, and of all the people to make him... So he has to kiss Tim again while he eases his fingers out, lick the corners of his mouth and feel him tremble and sigh, more than he needs to breathe.

And then he makes himself back off, a little.

Tim presses his face against Dick's throat, and the sheets are already a wreck so Dick uses them for emergency scrubbing. He'd rather lick his way down Tim's chest, enough that he can taste the thought, but blue balls never killed anyone and maybe now Tim can go back to sleep. The press of Tim's arm around his waist reminds him of something at the back of his mind, but... Tim's hair is dry at the ends now as Dick presses his face into it, so he breathes in sweat and shampoo and lets his mind fade to blankness.

At least until he remembers, and flinches, as he thinks of Sophia.

Maybe he's finally taken one too many kicks to the head, because why is he thinking about anyone else with Tim in his arms, and why is he thinking about Sophia at all? She's just a kid, and Tommy's not even really his boss, really.

She's older than Tim was when Bruce was arrested for the murder of Vesper Fairchild, when Tim kissed him on a rooftop.

Dick looks down at Tim's face half in shadow and half in rainy light, at the new lines sharpening his cheekbones, deepening his mouth. The man Tim's going to be has always been in the bones of the boy's face, but he's a lot closer to the surface now. Sophia hugged Dick tightly with tears on her cheeks, but he walked away from her; Tim only had to step towards him after his little bout of therapeutic property destruction, and Dick couldn't leave.

"I don't mean to mess up a good brood," Tim says in a very patient voice, eyes still closed, "but you're still hard and I'm still naked."

Dick opens his mouth, and shuts it, and opens it again. "I thought-- you know, sleep."

Tim opens one eye, then the other, and the hard line of his jaw makes Dick roll onto his back and spread his hands. "I'm not tired." Tim's smile's tilted and believable, but his eyes flash as kisses Dick, almost too hard.

Never too hard. Dick's eyes won't stay open, and Tim's hands are firm and inescapable on his shoulders; though he's still shorter than Dick he almost feels bigger than that as he pushes him down, still keeping things on his own terms. "God, Dick," Tim growls against his mouth, "I can't believe you-- I can't be-- oh, _fuck_ it--" and sinks his teeth into Dick's lip hard enough to hurt just right.

And then Tim reaches back, shoulder rolling beneath Dick's hand as he flips the lube open one-handed, and Dick shudders as his eyes roll back in his head.

Tim's not the first person to touch Dick since-- since Catalina, Dick makes himself think, gritting his teeth against the memory of her long hands and the rasp of Tim's rough fingers. But he should have been. Tim's touch makes Dick think of days he never thought he'd miss, when he was struggling to be Batman or the hungry cold of No Man's Land, when Tim twitched with happy shock whenever Dick swatted or hugged him, when they were a family. Those other hands, whether narrow or wide, long or square, didn't really touch Dick, didn't know him, but Tim's does, jacking him just fast enough, just hard enough. His pace doesn't slow or stutter as he swings a lengthened leg over Dick's thighs; even with eyes closed Dick can feel his stare like a cross between a laser and a hug. Clutching at the damp hollow of Tim's back and pressing his fingers into the solid flex of his side, Dick lets Tim have him and moans as he gives it up.

As Tim takes it, letting go of Dick's shoulder to pump him and squeeze him till Dick can't stop moaning any more than he could stop breathing, as Tim's hard lips and hard hands hold and move him; when Tim pulls his head up words fall unstoppably out of Dick's mouth. "Oh, God, Tim. Tim, I--"

"Fuck me, Dick." Tim's breath washes hot across Dick's face, and when his eyes open, Tim's are blazing.

"God, yes." That falls out before Dick can swallow it back. He bites his lip till his mouth throbs; Tim's eyes narrow to knife-sharp slits. "I mean, I mean, you don't have--"

"Stop it," Tim snarls, deeper than Dick can remember his voice ever being, deep enough to stop Dick's breathing, and for a long moment there's no sound but rain sloshing across the window and Dick's pulse drumming in his ears as Tim pins him down with a razor-edged glare.

Then Tim smiles, those sharp hot eyes making it slightly freaky. But that fits. "Is it better if I'm being entirely selfish?"

Dick knows his smile is sickly, but it's the only one he's got. "You aren't selfish enough often enough, so yeah."

"Okay, then." Tim sits back over Dick's thighs, carrying his weight on his own, and Dick remembers that particular tilt of smile from under Tim's mask, from his bedroom in the Gotham townhouse, from leaning over his shoulder to kiss it. The heat off Tim's skin hovering half an inch above his makes his thighs prickle, so he sits up, reaching forward, and this smile feels something a little like natural.

But Tim takes one hand off him to press on his shoulder till he lies flat again. When did Tim get so pushy? Dick could get to like this--

He can't be around to like it. He should've left already--

"Stop thinking," Tim says softly, eyes veiled by his lashes. His hand is stroking circles on Dick's shoulder at a different tempo than the other hand is stroking his cock.

"Isn't that my line?" Dick says, or tries to say, because Tim's fingers across his old bullet scar make his voice catch and break.

"Sometimes." Tim is petting him, skimming the bruises, pressing the rest of the way down his side and hip; when he arrives at the new bullet scar on Dick's thigh he strokes it up and down, very gently.

Tim looks down at his moving hand, and for a moment he's pale and bruised and dark in the watery light from the window; Dick nearly reaches up to pull him close and just kiss him till nothing matters anymore. Then Tim shifts, and Dick forces himself to think despite the hot flare in his chest, in his head, in his veins. "You need more--"

Smile tilting further, Tim shakes his head once, and Dick gulps. Tim shifts his hips up, and Dick's mouth falls open and empty of words as Tim pushes down onto him. He _would_. He would push right down like that, breathing noisy and deep as he bites his lip. There isn't enough lube, at all, the friction and heat streaming up Dick's spine, boiling his brain. He clutches at Tim's hard, tense thighs as Tim rocks down onto him, pushing just a little too slowly for a shove, gasping above Dick as Dick gasps underneath him.

"Fucking Christ, Tim," Dick breathes. Fresh sweat's beading on Tim's forehead, and his brows are drawn high and together, but his parted lips curl up into a smile. "Are you-- God. I." Dick can't think anyway, not balls-deep in the heat of Tim's body, the sensation of him and the worry for him mashed and melting together.

Dick can't think at all when Tim pushes his hands down to the bed, leaning back a little to press on them. Tim's hands are hard around Dick's wrists, broader than they used to be, making his biceps strain against their grip. "Oh, God," Dick wants to... Tim feels achingly good, arched above him, and Dick wants to call him "little brother," but he's...

"Dick," Tim growls in that strange low voice, pulling up; Dick's hips try to follow, but Tim squeezes his wrists, and his body obediently stills before his brain understands the order. "Dick, I." Neither the hair falling over Tim's face nor his sweaty flush cover the deeper red in his cheeks.

"Me too, little brother." Tim's sideways smile takes a weight off Dick's chest he'd forgotten was detachable. "Oh, God, I-- yeah." Turning his hands enough to grasp Tim's ankles doesn't feel like breaking the rules, and Tim's pulse in his instep thumps against Dick's fingertips. Shaking his head, Tim pushes down again, slow and hot and for a moment Dick couldn't see even if his eyes would stay open, but he manages to catch his breath and pry his eyelids up again.

He wants desperately to move, but Tim's moving for him, relentless and amazing. He can still move his eyes, from the flapping ends of Tim's damp hair and his lashes dark on his cheeks, his tight mouth and the tilt of his neck and the scarred sinewy ripple of his body. Tim is alive and beautiful and wants Dick more than Dick possibly deserves.

And he's half-hard.

Dick absolutely hates himself for not wanting to stop. When he pulls against Tim's hold, Tim's eyes snap open and he just leans harder on Dick's wrists. "Are you-- I mean, Tim, am I--"

Tim shakes his head, not smiling at all. "Come for me, Dick." And he just moves faster.

"What?" Dick wants to say more, to ask more, to make sure he's not hurting Tim, but Tim is clutching hot around him, enough to make him groan incoherently, and Tim's pulse is accelerating under his hands. He has to bite the inside of his cheek till the pain drives back the fever haze, a little. "Tim--"

This headshake is sharper, more violent; Tim pulls up out of the arch, still pushing against Dick's wrists as he leans forward. "They're all gone, you know."

He sounds conversational, a little winded, a little terrifying, and his eyes are dark with more than heat. "Tim," Dick pleads, hot and confused; he needs to understand before he can come, and with how Tim is moving that's not far off.

"Steph," Tim says, eyes pressing shut; Dick has a moment of sheer vertigo before he opens them again, dilated rings of blue. "She's gone. My Dad. He's gone. My best friend. Just quit." Every few words, another thrust, and Dick's eyes flutter, wanting to close, held by Tim's glare. "You left. He left. Cass left. You're leaving again. But you're coming first. For me, Dick. I'm not, I'm not forgetting you."

His _stupid_ words in the alley, and his heart feels like it's cracking and Tim is driving against him and he can't hold off his orgasm. "Tim, I, oh, _fuck_\--" and Dick wants to apologize, to tell Tim he knows, he didn't know, he loves him, but it all sinks under a roar like water in his ears as Dick's spine snaps into a bow, and Tim squeezes his wrists and hisses satisfaction as Dick comes groaning.

For a long hazy moment all Dick can do is shake. Tim lets go of Dick's wrists and plants his hands beside Dick's shoulders, pulling himself off as ruthlessly as he pushed on, leaning over Dick and watching his face. It's several heartbeats before Dick can even raise his hands to Tim's warm, sweat-tacky back.

As soon as he has the strength, Dick grabs him, and Tim doesn't tense or pull away or do anything but let Dick pull him down onto his chest. There's an echo of a beat in the back of Dick's head, a song or a drum or a pulse, and Tim's heart is pounding in time with it, and he's pliant across Dick's chest and hard against his thigh. "Tim?" Tim nods against his shoulder, and Dick thinks of kissing his stitches, licking the hollows of his hips, but when he kisses Tim's throat Tim tangles his fingers in Dick's hair and holds him there. There are so many ways he could do this, but when he fumbles for the lube and wraps his fingers around Tim's cock he can feel Tim shudder everywhere they're touching, across his whole body.

So Dick pets Tim, running his fingers through wiry hair for as long as he can without being a tease, and the apple of Tim's throat bobs against his mouth. He kisses across Tim's chin and cheek as he strokes him, slow and hard with the little twist he likes, brushing his thumb across the head, and Tim's arm is tight enough around him to make his ribs creak. Tim's low moans vibrate into his mouth, rising to a quiet sort of scream as Tim comes in his hand, fingers clutching hard enough to mash marks into his skin.

And then they lie there together, and just breathe.

Eventually, they both stretch and move a little. Dick pulls his hand up and licks it clean, because he can. Tim's heavy-lidded eyes flare above his smirk as he watches Dick suck his fingers, so Dick winks at him and makes a production of it until Tim wraps his hand around Dick's wrist to pull him down for a long messy kiss. When Tim backs off, just a little, Dick smiles against his mouth.

Tim whispers against his. "When are you coming back?"

Dick tenses before he can stop himself. Tim's eyes are closed, and he looks like he did when he was asleep, he looks so young. When Dick returns to Bludhaven, they may have to act like they're fighting. They may really have to fight. "Sooner than you might think," Dick says, trying to make it sound like a warning.

Tim looks up at him, mouth a hard line, eyes bright with a hope that ties knots in Dick's chest. He can't tell Tim everything this time, even if he wants to, not that he needs to; Tim's glittering eyes narrow, and his voice is that bit harder when he asks, "Who will you be working for?"

Dick ought to smile. He winces, a bigger clue than Tim would ever need, but all he can do is shut his eyes against Tim's look. Whose man will he be then, Tommy's? Black Mask's? Tim might finally not forgive him, and that thought chills his guts; maybe, Tim would give him one chance to explain, before breaking _both_ his legs, why he was working for the thug who killed Stephanie.

As if he could.

Tim's not going to let Dick hide behind his eyelids much longer. He opens his eyes and shrugs and tries to smile; Tim just regards him with resignation, and the silence is looming. "So, anyway," Dick attempts, "how are the Titans?"

And fails miserably. Tim's eyes widen, and then he looks like he wants to hit Dick, and really, Dick would deserve it. "You're not here to ask about them." Tim's shift away feels like the first crack as something shatters; when he rolls to tuck himself against Dick, the relief almost hurts in its intensity, even if he's looking out the window. "You remember when you said we had to go it alone? You were wrong, and you were completely right." Dick's throat wasn't this tight the last time a meta tried to choke him, but he doesn't have any words to say anyway. The rain is trailing off, the light steadier on Tim's distant expression as he shakes his head. "I miss... I miss flying in Gotham, between the skyscrapers. Bludhaven doesn't have anything that tall."

It's a subject change. It's a gift. How can Tim still give it? How is he still _here_ after they've destroyed his life? "How can you be so..."

"Yes?" Tim asks calmly, watching the rain.

"Cheerful?" Dick asks, and it's completely wrong.

There's no cheer at all in Tim's smile. "I thought that was Robin's job." And then there's no smile. "Was it--"

Dick grabs Tim's shoulders, hauls him over and kisses him, and Tim pushes up into it. "I meant it, you know," Tim's voice is rough, his hands clenching along Dick's spine. "I won't tell _him_ I saw you. We don't... talk, much. But, I... he needs you. And I."

Dick doesn't deserve how good this feels. "I missed you, too. I miss us. I miss--" He shuts himself up with Tim's mouth, and incredibly, dependably, Tim kisses him back. "But I can't, Tim. I can't."

The look in Tim's eyes makes Dick wonder just how many tracers he'll have to pick off his clothes. Then Tim smiles, with an effort, but honestly. "I should get up."

"Mmm-hmm," Dick nods, and holds on tighter. Tim snorts and pushes his smile against Dick's shoulder, where Dick can feel it.


	2. Unused Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They often say that the difference between a professional and an amateur is that the amateur shows you _all_ of their works, and here I go living down to the cliche. This is the epilogue to "[At the Bottom of the Sky](http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/140694.html#cutid1)" (Dick/Tim, NC-17) that I ended up not using. I was cleaning and reorganizing my files and couldn't quite bear to toss this. So here it is, rated approximately PG-13. 

Dick wakes up, slow and warm; when he opens his eyes the sky is clear through a dry window. Tim is asleep in the exact same position atop him as when Dick went to sleep, head on his shoulder, which means he probably got up sometime and that he's getting even sneakier if Dick didn't notice. This is probably ominous for humanity, and definetely for the bad guys, and Dick kisses Tim's forehead with quiet pride.

It takes him awhile to get out of bed, more because he doesn't want to move than because he's trying not to wake Tim up. Tim's out cold, limp and breathing softly; if Dick thinks about what that level of relaxation, and that level of exhaustion, both probably mean he's not going to be able to leave, and he's probably stayed longer than he should have. He doubts they have anyone good enough to tail him without his noticing, but he'd rather not have to explain how Crutches knows Robin, all the same.

Nor bring Tim any more trouble to deal with.

Any more than he already has, anyway.

Dick doesn't laugh, and doesn't punch himself in the face, and does pull the blanket up around Tim's shoulders.

And then he goes while he can.

He showers, thinking about food. Tim had told him, "there's chips and cereal, and the milk should still be good." And that's precisely everything edible in the place, so Dick's not going to deplete it. He can find a pizza joint.

He gets dressed, admires the security systems, and picks up his bag. The note Tim left on it says simply, "It was good seeing you. Stay safe." A little prodding dislodges the wire from the bottom edge of the paper. Dick smiles as he puts it on the table and folds the note up to keep.

He smiles wider when he finds the tracers, the dime-sized round magnetic kind. The first is stuck to the back of a snap, and the second is sewn carefully into the space between the layers of lining. It's really difficult to see where the machine stiches end and Tim's begin. Dick pats himself down carefully, shaking his head, but doesn't find anything. He sets the tracers down on the table-- no point to breaking equipment Tim could use-- and turns to climb out the window.

As he steps out his left sneaker feels a little strange at the heel, and again when he lands. Dick takes it off and checks it more carefully, and there's the third tracer, in the heel.

Dick looks at it, and considers. He could go back in and leave it with the others. He could break it and leave it here.

But...

Dick disables it and puts it in his pocket with the note, because. As he walks out of the alley, he doesn't notice, but he's smiling.


End file.
